


Love me the way you did (before you slipped through my fingers)

by riseofskyloren



Series: One shots [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: A mix of fluff and sad, Accident mention without details, Amnesia, Ben has amnesia, F/M, I haven't watched it yet so I don't know, I like soulmates, Love, Mention of food for 2 lines, Name of a cake to be precise, Rey is the purest soul, Someone said it made them think of the Vow kinda, Soulmates, coma mention, kinda cute?, they're in love, they're married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:28:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24952345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riseofskyloren/pseuds/riseofskyloren
Summary: “I know that I know you,” he finally said when he found the courage to look at her “but you’re a blurry memory, Rey.”When Ben loses his memories, he isn't ready to face Rey- the wife he had forgotten. But months had passed, and now it's time to meet again.
Relationships: Ben - Relationship, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: One shots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1788517
Comments: 20
Kudos: 137





	Love me the way you did (before you slipped through my fingers)

**Author's Note:**

> I've once again spent too many hours on Pinterest, wrote a 4AM [Prompt](https://twitter.com/qdamdriver/status/1276703603508551686) on Twitter and did it today. 
> 
> This isn't Beta so I apologise in advance for all of the mistakes that surely have slipped in there, don't insult my guts in the comments- I'm French and I'm trying my best. But if you saw something awful and wanna let me know, I'm all ears <3
> 
> READ THE TAGS 
> 
> I hope you guys will like this, thank you for reading!

The air was cold outside, freezing Ben’s bones. The hard wind slapping his face wasn’t yet enough to wake him up from the constant blurry dream his life had been for the past few months. 

Walking around a neighborhood he once called home, passing in front of a park he used to have picnics dates in; smiling at the neon sign at the corner of the street, a bar he had apparently made tons of memories in. Memories he couldn’t remember anymore. Memories from a life that didn’t feel like his. 

Ben spotted a bench in front of the park and settled in for a minute. He was cold underneath his grey beanie, hiding messy waves of black thick hair. He shoved his hands inside the pockets of his long black coat, chasing after any warmth to ease his frozen body. 

It was his mother’s idea, making him come back here. A place he hadn’t visited since the accident. To see a woman he once called his wife but couldn’t even remember the slightest part of her personality. He had tried, so hard. Alone in his hospital bed, holding a picture of the two of them are their wedding ceremony, trying to remember what she sounded like— what it felt to hold her into his arms and hear her laughter. His mother had tried to fill in the blanks, telling him the story of how they met and any details that she could think of but nothing had worked. In the blurry shadow of his mind, his wife hadn’t had any place. He couldn’t remember their first date at the beach, their first kiss at the graduation party— nothing. The woman he had loved enough to marry was now basically a stranger, and it was killing him.

Ben had refused to see her when he woke up that monday after a month of coma. He couldn’t face her. The two elders standing by his bed when he first opened his eyes had cried lightly, pulling him into tight hugs and kissing his forehead as if they had known each others for a lifetime— which was true, but they were strangers to him. Ben remembered with an heavy chest his parent’s reaction when he'd found the courage to ask them who they were; the pain in his mothers eyes as she started crying again, whispering to her husband a dozens of _Our son doesn’t remember us_. He had felt awful. The consciousness of hurting the two people he thought he’d never forget almost to much to carry. 

He remembered the long hours of conversations he had had with them, listening fake-strangers telling him everything he had forgotten about his own life. How he used to be shy in high school until he met a guy named Poe who became his best friend and helped him open up to the world, how he had threw up on their yard on his 18th birthday in front of his entire family. Thousands of words spoken through a span of hours, hundreds of pictures with him and others people he couldn’t remember the names. It was heavy. Heartbreaking to be the reason people cried when he wasn’t even able to remember who they were.

But the worst part was when he spotted the gold ring on his finger, a symbol he somehow remembered through his blurry mind. He was reluctant asking them at first, on his guard in front of those people who knew everything about him while he knew nothing about them. But he did. His mother told him about her with a shaky voice. Rey. His wife. 

When his mother had told him she was on his way, Ben had panicked and begged for her to tell her not to. Even now, alone in the street at almost 9, he was feeling terrible about his reaction. Months had passed since his wife had received the call— one that was asking for her not come yet, not until he was ready. And truthfully he wasn’t, but she didn’t deserve to be kept away from him without an explanation.

He was dreading the moment he would finally rang on her door— their door. Dreading the moment he would step into what was their home and be once again slapped with the realization that he had lost everything. He had thought a lot about what he’d say, how he would explain the fear he had felt when his parents had told him about her existence and— and how it was just too much. In his own way, he had tried to protect her from the mess he was; from the burden he knew he was about to be on his family and his instincts had spoken for him— he knew deep down, for a reason he still couldn’t explained, that he had to protect her. Maybe it wasn’t the smartest choice, but seeing the genuine hurt on his parents eyes had been enough. He didn’t wanted to hurt anyone else. 

But where he was, because his mother had said it was time. The address of the house was safely folded in his back pocket and he knew he had to do this. To give her an exit if she wanted it. So he stood up, looking around him patiently and waiting for that tingle in his chest he had started to feel a few weeks ago when something from his past was trying to overcome the blurry barrier of his memory. He had grown confident on his ability to recover some of his long lost memories, trusted the doctors who told him to follow his guts if it felt right. He started walking down the street, his gaze staring at each house with a purpose.

And it finally happened. His feet hurried on their own accord and stopped still in front of a white house illuminated with a few christmas lights hanging loose around the wooden barrier of the patio. His chest fluttered, his eyes widening at the realization that this was it. His house. He stayed there for a while, only taking sight at was standing in front of him; the rocking chair by the trees, the red mailbox with his name on it. 

But he didn’t saw her at first, too focused on the black tight letters saying _Rey and Ben Solo._ Of course he had believed his parents about her existence, he had seen pictures of their wedding and such but it had never hit him as hard as it did now. Because she was real, everything was real. And that’s when he saw her. Standing by the only open window, wrapped up in a cover bigger than her and lips slightly opened with an ounce of shock written all around her face. 

He surely was as wrecked. Tears forming in the corner of his eyes because his greatest nightmare was coming into live in front of him. She was there, real. But if it wasn’t for the pictures, he wouldn’t have recognized her at all. And he knew he shouldn’t be surprised, knew pretty well by now that the people he had loved the most would only be strangers until he started a new relationship from scratch. But deep down, he had _hoped_ that this would be different. That she would be the exception. Because he knew he believed in soulmates and that if he had married her— it was because she was his one and only true love. A soulmate found in an ocean of bodies. If his amnesia wouldn’t have erased someone— it would have been her. But it wasn’t the case and it broke him a little bit more inside, always another little fracture on his wounded heart at a time. 

He climbed the three stairs that led him to the door with apprehension and knocked on the door with a trembling hand. A door that opened almost immediately to reveal his wife— shaking herself as tears were falling on her cheekbones.

They stayed quiet for a moment, looking at each other with a common fear : that all of this was a mirage, a creation of their imagination. But Ben eventually opened his mouth, everything becoming more real.

“Hi, Rey.” He whispered, testing the sound of her name on his lips.

Her tears intensified, shaking her body in an almost hysterical way that he feared she might fainted. His brain went on autopilot, remembering him that he had vowed once to protect her and make her feel safe now matter where they were. So he took a few shy steps in her directions, gently pushing her back inside and closing the door behind them. She was still shaking like a leaf, the cover fallen at her feet and her hands pressed on her face while she was trying her hardest to sob silently. It broke his heart. 

“Hey…” He said, pulling her into his arms and stroking her hair with one hand while the other was resting on her lower back. “It’s okay.” 

She was a sobbing mess in his arms, her tears wetting his neck. He stayed still, whispering what he hoped were comforting words in her hair. It felt right. Holding her in a such intimate way, as if nothing had changed. He liked it. 

Eventually, her tears started to stop and she leaned back, pulling herself away from him. “I’m sorry.” She said with a broken voice, erasing the last trace of wetness on her cheeks. “Do— do you want to sit?” She offered, gesturing for the couch by the fireplace.

He nodded with a shy smile, trying to be as reassuring as he could considering his state of pure fear. She led him to the sofa as if he was a guest, tightening his heart once again. Feeling like a stranger in his own home wasn’t something he thought he would experienced in a lifetime but yet here he was— awkwardly sitting in a sofa they had bought together, looking at the framed pictures on the wall with curiosity. Pictures of them mostly, retracing the years they had spent together— 8 since their first date. She sat in front of him, her legs crossed under her body and the cover back on her body even though the fire was still crackling. 

“I know that I know you,” he finally said when he found the courage to look at her “but you’re a blurry memory, Rey.”

Rey sniffed, smiling tenderly. She knew it was coming, the day they’d have to talk about everything and the future— and she wanted to make it as easy for him as she could, because if the situation was heartbreaking for her; it surely was a thousand times worst for him. So she simply answered, “I know.”

Ben bit down on his lips, wondering how he should approach the conversation he deep down knows they should be having. One they should have had months ago.

“Listen,” he said, playing with his hands. A sign of nervousness Rey knew everything about. “I’m here to apologize… I know I shouldn’t have reacted this way and shut you down without seeing you first but— I couldn’t face you knowing that I had forgotten everything.” His voice broke at the last word, letting out his guilt was harder than he had anticipated. “I can’t stand the idea that I married you, loved you with everything I had in me just to forget everything over an accident— I hate that I know deep down that I’m in love with you but that the actual reasons are hidden behind a thick shadow I can’t cross.” The tears he had tried so hard to swallow started to roll down his cheeks. “I can’t do this to you, Rey, it’s not fair.” Ben whispered, looking away as the words came out and burned his throat. “I can’t ask you to stay and love me the way you do while I can’t even remember you’re birthday or your favorite cake, or even your middle name.”

He felt her presence next to him before he saw her, but he leaned in anyway. Welcoming the comfort of her touch and the familiarity he could almost believe in if he closed his eyes. 

“My birthday is August 15th, I don’t have a middle name and my favorite cake is a coffee one with mocha frosting” She whispered, taking off his beanie to gently massage his scalp.

“I don’t like coffee cake with mocha frosting—” Ben sighed contented, feeling his body relaxed as her fingers were doing magic on his hair.

“— because it’s an insult for coffee and the only way you should taste it is by drinking it.” She finished for him, a smile ghosting on her lips. A gentle little argument they had had again and again until one of them gave up and silenced the other with a kiss. “Love— I mean Ben, it doesn’t matter if you don’t remember those things. I don’t care if I have to tell you all of my stories once again, I’ll do it again and again because I know the guy I fell in love with is in you somewhere and I’m not giving up on you.” She caressed his face, the 3 days old beard on his jawline making her smile. She loved when he wasn’t shaved. “This wedding cost way too much money for us to get a divorce now,” she joked, lightning the mood and soothing his heart. “it’s until death do us apart my love, I’m not leaving. I love you, and I’ll prove it every day until you can remember it and believe in us again.” 

Ben opened his eyes. He trusted her somehow, knew she meant every single words of what she said— _my love_ she had called him, the warmth in his chest a divine sign that his blurry mind recognised the pet name and that he loved it as much now as he used to. Perhaps even a little bit more. 

“What if I’m not the man you fell in love with anymore?” He asked, his eyes finally meeting hers. 

“Then I’ll learn to know you again, get to fall in love with my soulmate again.” She kissed his forehead with the most gentle brush of her lips against his skin. “Do you think you can love me the way you did?” 

Ben looked at her. The tenderness in her eyes, the freckles on her redden cheeks. The love he could read on her face saddened by the tears he had caused. The pure resolve her eyes were screaming. Someone who wasn’t going to let go of him. Someone who had accepted the situation better than him and was already adapting her life to be sure that him— her husband, could find his place in the love story that used to be is. Yes, he could live with that. He could discover her entire soul again, fall in love all over again with Rey. Because that was soulmates did. When life do them apart, they find their way back together and start again and again until the black days were long gone and love is filling their hearts. He could do that. And he would, no matter how much time would be needed— because he trusted his guts, if he had chosen to marry her it’s because she was the one and only one. If he had realized it years ago, he could do it again. 

“Yes.” He whispered, a soft smile illuminating his features. “I can love you the way I did, and even more."

**Author's Note:**

> You can join me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/qdamdriver), come say hi I don't bite


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